rough the
mountains, but there is better to be obtained lower down, and my advice
to the traveller is to make no stop for fishing purposes until Sicamous
is reached, at the head of Shuswap Lake where the Eagle River enters it.
The Thompson River flows out of the lake at the other end, and the
Shuswap Lake and Thompson River constitute the best fishing district of
British Columbia, and will be the chief subject of the following pages.

It should be premised, however, that there is plenty of what may be
styled "virgin water" in British Columbia besides the streams and lakes
described in these pages. In a few years the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
will render accessible a network of rivers and lakes some four hundred
miles to the north of the present line, and the addition to the angler's
opportunities by this will, of course, be very great.

The cost of the fourteen-day journey from London to British Columbia
will be at most L50 each way; it can be done for much less. There is no
charge for the fishing, and ordinary living expenses are not high. One
can stop at the hotels along the Thompson for 2 dollars a day, in
Kamloops for 3 dollars a day, in the Canadian Pacific Railway hotels at
4 dollars to 6 dollars. There are no extra charges, except at the bar,
which in British Columbia it is considered the duty of everyone to
support liberally. A stranger will find that a few dollars spent
judiciously and with tact in this way will usually be productive of
quite astonishing results. In the West a drink puts everyone on equal
terms, and at once establishes a feeling of _camaraderie_. It might be
said to correspond somewhat to the old custom of offering the snuffbox.

The natives understand it as a sign that the stranger wishes to be on
good terms, that he does not consider himself superior in any sense,
that there is no side about him, that he is willing to drink with them
as an equal. He will certainly receive a like invitation, and he must on
no account refuse; to do so is an unpardonable violation of Western
etiquette, even if everyone present insists on taking the part of host
in turn. There is, however, no cause for alarm on the score of
temperance, for it is quite _de rigueur_ to ask for a cigar or to take a
mere apology for a drink. If the stranger thus satisfies Western ideas
of what is right and proper he will usually find that the individuals
who had apparently hitherto regarded him somewhat in the manner that a
stran